Former England captain Michael Vaughan analyses the second day of the second Test at Lord's.

AUSTRALIA deserved a hammering for their Ashes performance overnight, and the UK hacks did not spare the horses.

The visitors’ afternoon batting display, when they conspired to be all out for 128 after some crease-based comedy of the darkest hue, was described as “just awful”, "deeply dismaying" and worse by a disbelieving English press pack.

After years of genuflecting before powerhouse Aussie batting displays, the Pommy sporting temperament did not appear ready for such a brittle performance from those wearing baggy greens.

“They are men to whom a razor is a stranger, men with jutting jaws of immense muscular strength that comes from years of frenzied gum-chewing. They have been aware since conception of the superiority of God’s bloody own over anything the Poms can come up with.

An all too familiar batting order collapse leaves Australia teetering on the second day of the second Ashes Test against England at Lords.

“They are people without compromise. They look as if they grew up castrating sheep with their teeth. They play sport without sparing themselves or their opponents. They are sentimental only about headgear and mateship. They see loyalty as an aspect of hardness.

“… Instead of hardness there was softness. Instead of clarity there was muddle. Instead of certainty there was doubt. Instead of smartness there was stupidity. Instead of runs there were wickets. And while it was all very pleasant to watch it would have been much better if we’d been watch something that looked like Australia.

“… As an Englishman I find it deeply dismaying. Life is not like this, certainly not Australian life. Yesterday was like watching a fly-past of duck-billed platypus while savouring a mulled Toohey’s.”

England's James Anderson celebrates the wicket of Peter Siddle on Day 2 of the second Ashes Test at Lord's.

Former England captain Nasser Hussain, writing in the Daily Mail, described the Aussie batting display as “a shambles”.

“I don’t care if you’re not Ricky Ponting or Matthew Hayden or Mike Hussey. Any Test player should be able to knuckle down and show responsibility,” he wrote.

“When the camera focused on Darren Lehmann on the Aussie balcony, he was smiling grimly. I don’t blame him. In situations like that, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Australia showed none of the fighting spirit we expect from them. They were just awful.”

The Guardian's Barney Ronay mused on what a collection of Aussie batsmen should be called: “An impermanence of Australian batsmen, perhaps. A disconsolate trudge. A technological naivety, a groan, a shower, a staged public detumescence of nuggety left-handed swishers.”

Martin Samuel detailed the dismissal of Chris Rogers by Graeme Swann’s full toss with disbelief, describing it as the “Bizarro World” version of Shane Warne’s Ball of the Century.

“The Bizarro World is a fictional planet in the DC Comics universe, in which everything is the opposite of what is expected … In Bizarro cricket, spin bowlers would take wickets with waist-high full tosses,” Samuel wrote.

“This is precisely what Graeme Swann did. He overpitched the ball — one presumes it slipped from a sweaty hand — to such an extent that it arrived like a weak primary-school rounders throw, ripe to be planted on to Wellington Road by Australia’s opener. Rogers drew back his bat, swung and missed his intended target completely.

Chris Rogers makes a rather embarrassing mistake to a juicy Graeme Swann full toss.

“The ball, now on a gentle downward trajectory, struck him just north of the delicate box area to jubilant, if slightly disbelieving, cries from the England contingent.

“Erasmus gave the required signal and Rogers, momentarily, paused for thought. Shane Watson had earlier shamefully wasted Australia’s first appeal, putting Rogers under pressure to avoid throwing away the one remaining.

“Also, no doubt, behind the helmet visor his cheeks were reddening with embarrassment. He took the soft option and retreated with as much dignity as could be mustered. The replays showed the ball to be missing leg stump by a mile.

“This may well be the most consistently incompetent sequence of events in the history of Test cricket, in that not a single action was performed efficiently. The ball was atrocious, the shot worse, the appeal was unwarranted, the decision erroneous and refusing to review was a mistake.

“This was Bizarro cricket. Then again, little of what Australia did yesterday made much sense.”

Samuel wrote that Australia’s deficiencies had so far been papered over by some remarkable individual displays but were now on show for all to see.

“Australia’s problem is that at heart this group are a collection of second-rate boys’ own stories and freaky fairy-tales. The last man in who gets 98, the returning bowler who bags five at Lord’s, the 10th-wicket stand that almost won the Test, the occasional leg spinner who ripped England apart.

“Individually, these are heroic tales — yet only exceptional individuals conquer a team sport and Australia do not have the depth to capitalise on these little miracles.”

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